


now it’s we, us and ours

by natigail



Series: Phandom Fic Fest - Escape from reality [1]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2009 to 2020 Phan, Domestic Fluff, Falling In Love, Introspection, M/M, POV First Person, Reality, Strangers to Lovers, and becoming best friends too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:47:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23204938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natigail/pseuds/natigail
Summary: It had always been me, myself and I. I had never had a best friend. I had never had anyone who truly understood me. I had never thought I'd find anyone, but then you came into my life and I couldn't have been more wrong.
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Series: Phandom Fic Fest - Escape from reality [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1678729
Comments: 12
Kudos: 35
Collections: phandomficfests: escape from reality





	now it’s we, us and ours

I had felt alone my whole life. I felt like no one understood me and like no one cared. I was drifting through life, switching between the extremes of trying to make friends and being funny and wanting to avoid everyone and be left alone.

I had friends, sure.

But it was not _real_ friends. We could hang out at school and it would be fine, or in groups and I guess I would have a spot. But I never felt really close to them. They all had better friends than me. I never knew what it was like to be someone’s first priority. Even the people I started to feel like might become my best friend, they had other people be their best friend. I wasn't good enough to take that first spot for anyone.

It was never reciprocal.

I told myself that it was just the way my life was. I would never be someone’s favourite anything, and frankly, shouldn’t I just feel thankful that someone wanted to be casual friends with me in the first place? I didn’t think I deserved better.

I was alone and I had thought I would die alone.

I felt like I’d missed my shot at making long and lasting bonds with people in my teenage years. I didn’t want to talk to anyone from school after we graduated. I told myself I was just fine by myself.

I was an island. I didn’t care if people said that it was impossible.

I stood alone, and I pretended that I still didn’t yearn for the connection. It got easier with time. I got really good at hiding what I wanted and pretending like everything was fine, even if my life was falling apart around me.

I was okay in my solitude.

Or I told myself I was okay in my solitude.

In the dim light of my bedroom, late at night, I would turn to the internet for the connection I didn’t feel with people in real life. It was easier online, I could mask who I was even more, and no one would be able to see all the bits that made them deem me not worthy. I could be anyone online.

I still wasn’t sure what part of me that had made them deem me unworthy of their undivided time and attention. I had tried to pick myself apart, time and time again, and try to mould into something that they would like. It was disingenuous and it didn’t work, at least not well enough. They might like the mask on a surface level but it wasn’t enough for that deep connection I yearned for in secret shame.

YouTube was my main escape and you in particular had caught my attention. Perhaps because you made it feel like we were friends. You were weird, and attractive, but most of all you had kind eyes.

You looked like someone who would never make plans in front of someone and not invite you along. You looked like someone who would make a bad joke just for the chance to make your friends laugh. You looked like someone who would hug me tight and never let go first.

I think I fell a little in love with you then.

It was not real love; I know that now as I had the privilege of feeling what it was truly like to be loved by you. It was infatuation, and a bit of projection, but it was enough to drive me to begin leaving comments. I surprised myself with that because I had already gotten so good at pretending like no one wanted to hear what I wanted to say.

I’m very glad that I started reaching out.

I don’t think I’d ever expected you to be reaching back. I had hoped, of course, but it had seemed like a very far-fetched idea. You had thousands of people wanting your attention and I had never been someone who had been at the top of anyone’s priority list.

But we kept talking.

I was so nervous in the beginning, always double and triple checking my words before posting and I kept waiting for the moment when I’d say something wrong and you’d cut off the contact.

That anxiety faded a little with time.

I had never known that talking to someone could be so fun. You made me smile all the time. Even when we weren’t texting back and forth or meeting up on Skype for hours on end, I would feel you all around me.

I was still waiting for the other shoe to drop, even as you said such nice things to me. Even though, I felt more seen with you than I had with anyone my whole life. I still didn’t feel like I measured up. I felt like you were too good, too bright and too shiny to be friends with me. Let alone best friends and something more than romantic.

I knew you were the best friend I’d ever had, but I still remember when you told me the same.

We’d been flirting, and I couldn’t help but wonder if that was more what it was to you. I didn’t really mind, because I was beyond attracted to you but I still longed for that emotional connection more than a purely physical one. I yearned for the type of friendship that I had tried to get my whole life.

“Dan?” you said, one night where we sat in our respective dark bedrooms, either side of the country.

“Yeah, Phil?” I replied, taking a moment to look at you.

“Is it weird that you’re like my best friend and we haven’t met in person?” you asked.

I think my brain short circuited for a while. I had not expected those words to fall from your lips, and with such ease and confidence. You didn’t sound unsure. We had only really been talking properly for a couple of months and I had become your best friend.

I remember thinking that maybe, just maybe, you had needed me as much as I had needed you.

“We should meet then,” I said when I recovered from the shock and the warm feeling spreading from the centre of my chest. I was usually not the forward one of us but I was delighted to see your big smile.

“I’d love that.”

Meeting you was nerve-wracking and it felt like the biggest moment in my life so far. It felt grand and important, even as I was trying to quell expectations. You might still reject me, despite your words of reassurances. You might see me in person and decide that you didn’t want me anyway. I don’t think I would even have blamed you. My self-confidence was shitty back then, even if you had already helped me a lot.

You didn’t push me away.

No, you pulled me closer.

The moment I saw you, without a screen in between, I wondered how someone could be so mesmerising. I felt like the breath got sucked out of my lungs. It felt a little like dying and becoming reborn within the same breath. Because when I saw you, when we ran towards each other, coming together in a clashing and tight hug, I felt like I wasn’t alone anymore.

I had carried the loneliness with me so long, I had tried to make friends with it, just because I had accepted that it would never go away. It had been a permanent void in me, but standing on Manchester Station, wrapped up in your arms for the first time of many, I felt the loneliness unclench its claws a little.

There were deep wounds from the claws, raw and bleeding now, but it didn’t matter because the hold had loosened and it left a space for you. You didn’t even have to say anything to let me know that you had meant all those words spoken to me through a screen. You showed me with your embrace.

And slowly but surely, I wasn’t just me anymore.

I had you.

Not in a possessive way. I could never expect to own you or lay claim to you in any way. I didn’t want to. I wanted you to want to reach out and interlock hands with me. I wanted us to meet in the middle, both wanting the connection. I couldn’t stand the thought of having to chase you down, to convince you to stay with me, but I didn’t have to.

Because we burned with the same intensity. It was a gentle tug of war back and forth, only we were not trying to tip each other over – we were trying to tip into each other.

It started small, with every time we met up. I could feel how we became more and more intertwined and interconnected.

Some might call it borderline co-dependent.

It was for a little while before we figured out the boundaries but it was ours to figure out and not for anyone else to get involved.

Somewhere along the line, I stopped worrying that it would all fall apart. Maybe it was when we moved in together, or maybe it was when we had to deal with backlash for almost being exposed to our audience. The storms came and I had always had my heart in my throat, wondering if we could weather them, because previously – before I had met you – I felt like the gentlest breeze was all it took for me to be knocked over.

Turns out that you can weather storms a lot better if you can lock arms and sprout roots together. You allowed me to develop roots for the first time.

I told you how much I loved you every day, just for the joy of saying it and to see the gentle expression in your eyes. Even when you teased me about it, you would always say it back with the same intensity.

We would tell each other at breakfast with messy morning hair. We would tell each other between heated breaths and presses of our bodies. We would tell each other in the dark of the night, whispered quiet for just our ears as we were falling asleep.

People teased us that we were becoming one joint person.

I kept talking about you and I together, because we had become each other’s person.

Best friends.

Flatmates.

Lovers.

Collaborators.

Business partners.

Nothing could really encompass all of us, even as we had begun to build the world of Dan and Phil, almost by accident. I never minded that someone would always see us together, and that if one was here the other wouldn’t be far behind.

I still wanted to be my own person but I didn’t mind being half of us too.

We. Us. Our.

I revelled in those words, even as the years passed. When I had been young, I had never thought I’d get to share them with anyone like you. I said it out loud all the time. I joked about getting our names tattooed on my forehead. Our names together might have been my most used three words.

We build a brand around us. We sold it to the world, even as we hid the aspect of our romantic relationship. Hid is a big word but we were quietly loud about it. It was easy for anyone to see that paid attention. I was so fucking gone for you, in all aspects. I adored you with all of my heart, even when we got into arguments.

You made me, a cynic, believe in forever. You made me believe in galaxies.

It was difficult not to when everything in our lives reassured me and cemented just how much we had intertwined our roots. I knew the pain of having them ripped up would almost be enough to kill me, if that should ever happen. It would hit me sometimes, when my brain was being mean and ugly, but I would just need to look at you to feel better.

We lived together and we shared nearly everything. We were not going to fall apart.

Everyone thought they knew about us but really no one but ourselves knew it all.

We had built our home and our space together, from the ground up.

Loneliness was an old foe and sometimes it would still rear its ugly head but it didn’t scare me anymore. Not when I could reach out and take your hand, fall into your embrace and your kiss, or hear your words of comfort.

“What are we having for dinner?” you asked, one night, a normal occurrence.

I loved this. The domestic scene of it all. We’d been having dinner together most days for nearly ten years by now but still, it made my lips quirk up into a small smile.

“Whatever you fancy,” I told you. “I’m not picky.”

You let out a snort, just like I knew you would. “Right,” you said with a fond eyeroll.

“We could order from our favourite pizza place?” I suggested because I could tell that you were not in a mentality to make any decisions right now. It was the reason you had asked, you wanted something to absolve you from choices right now, even simple ones. I got it, because I had those days too.

“Sounds good,” you said, humming under your breath. Your phone is out a beat later, already scrolling through the delivery app with a content smile on your face.

“Do you think they’ll judge us if we order this much?” you asked, titling the screen towards me as I scan over the list of items you had picked out.

You didn’t need me to pick out anything because you already knew my order. It ws such a simple thing but I loved it so much. I loved that we understood each other so well that we could communicate without any trouble.

There was a world of Dan and Phil that was shared with our audiences but there was also a private little world of the two of us and the massive backlog of information that we had gathered about each other through the years.

“It’ll be fine, Phil,” I said. “We both know that we can eat it all. And I’m sure they recognise our address or at least they’ll remember when they see us at the door.”

“Not us,” you said with a pointed finger. “They will see you at the door. You’re opening it for the delivery man.”

“Oh, am I?” I asked, leaning into your warm side, letting my fingers trail up your side, ready for a tickle attack. You were shifted away from my fingers already because you knew that look in my eye.

I didn’t mind opening the door by myself, if I got to do everything else with you. But I still enjoyed teasing you, even after all these years.

“Yes, you are,” you said resolutely.

“Are you going to make me answer it all alone?” I asked with a pout, playing it up just for the fun of it.

“You’re never all alone. I’m right here. I’ll be right behind you, like I always am. You know that,” you answered with a bout of sincerity that I hadn’t been bracing for.

By the looks of it, you didn’t think it was a big statement, since you were already tapping away on your phone again. But it hit me in the centre of my chest, a tight and warm feeling of being loved.

Of being loved and appreciated for so many years and having even more to come. A forever of we, us and ours.

I could answer the door by myself, because you were right. I was not alone. Not anymore. Not since you walked into my life and we never let go of each other. Ever since then I’d known what it is like to have someone in my corner at all times, and what it is like to be able to depend on someone other than yourself.

“Done,” you said, satisfied smile on your face as you sent off the order.

“Hmm,” I just hummed in response, lost in my thought spiral.

I didn’t need to say anything more. A second later, arms were around me and lips lingered on my temple, pressing a gentle kiss to my skin. So maybe you did know the effect of your words.

“What should we do while we wait?” you asked, kind and warm, and the emotions sat heavy in my stomach.

Even after all these years, the waves of love and adoration would come to me at times and I would be reminded just how wonderful it is to love and be loved in return.

“Anything you want to do, as long as we’re together,” I answered, and when you poked out your tongue and called me sentimental and cheesy, as expected, I reached up and ruffled your hair before going for the tickle attack that got aborted.

“You stay away from me, Dan!” you screamed, trying to leap out of my grasp. But you should have known by now that I was never letting you go.

“You can’t get rid of me, Phil. We’re in this together!” I exclaimed and held on even tighter.

Laughter bubbled up between us and we didn’t stop giggling for a long time. Later, I answered the door without you, but I walked back to see that you had set the table for us and lit our favourite candle.

Yeah, we had each other in every way that mattered.

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a while since I've written anything in first person. It used to be my old favourite point of view, if you can believe it. It was the one I used when I started to write and it felt a little like coming home. I had to find a rhythm for it again, but then it flowed pretty easily. I hope you enjoyed this introspective journey through Dan's eyes as he and Phil met and fell in love.
> 
> I certainly made myself feel very soft and warm. I would love to know your thoughts if you want to leave them below. I hope you are all doing as well as you can, in the midst of the craziness that is our world right now.


End file.
